Life and Existence

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul.

My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite, I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time.

My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite, I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time.

I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.

But me they’ll lash in hammock, drop me deep. Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I’ll dream fast asleep. I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there? Just ease these darbies [manacles] at the wrist, And roll me over fair! I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.

If Luther’s day expand to Darwin’s year, Shall that exclude the hope—foreclose the fear?

Dies, all dies! The grass it dies, but in vernal rain Up it springs and it lives again; Over and over, again and again It lives, it dies and it lives again.

Dies, all dies! The grass it dies, but in vernal rain Up it springs and it lives again; Over and over, again and again It lives, it dies and it lives again.

All civil charms And priestly spells which late held hearts in awe— Fear-bound, subjected to a better sway Than sway of self; these like a dream dissolve, And man rebounds whole aeons back in nature.

What troops Of generous boys in happiness thus bred— Saturnians through life’s Tempe led, Went from the North and came from the South, With golden mottoes in the mouth, To lie down midway on a bloody bed.

The poor old Past, The Future’s slave.

When I was a beggarly boy, And lived in a cellar damp, I had not a friend nor a toy, But I had Aladdin’s lamp.

For a cap and bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we buy with a whole soul’s tasking: ’Tis heaven alone that is given away, ’Tis only God may be had for the asking.

For a cap and bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we buy with a whole soul’s tasking: ’Tis heaven alone that is given away, ’Tis only God may be had for the asking.